It is far
bigger. It is far broader. Tutwiler has been labeled the worst prison in
America for sexual abuse, but it is still just a crack in the jailhouse door in
Alabama, a well-documented glimpse into what can go wrong with men and women,
with power and vulnerability.

The same goes
on in city and county jails across the state, in work release centers and
lockups in places like Mount Vernon and in Winston County, in Bullock and
Clarke counties.

While six
workers from Tutwiler have faced charges of custodial sexual misconduct – the
statute that bars sexual relationships between staff and inmates – records from
the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts indicate that 10 times that many
have faced those charges over the last decade in other correctional facilities
across the state.

And while the
law calls any relationship between a guard and an inmate a felony, the real
world often doesn't see it that way. So potential sex abusers walk.

Since 2004 when
the law was imposed, at least 63 corrections workers in 32 jurisdictions have
been charged with the crime of custodial sexual misconduct, according to AOC
records. In almost half the cases, the men and women charged (30 percent are
female) pleaded to lesser offenses or those that would carry no sex crime
brand, or saw their felony crimes dropped altogether.

There are
nightmare stories like that of Anthony Alvin Baker, a probation officer for the
Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles in Winston and Marion counties. Multiple
women claimed he ogled them and touched them, bribed and coerced and forced
them into sex

They claim he
had a "hold" placed on one probationer so she'd be picked up by cops and
brought to him, where he could check her out. He told her he'd keep her out of
jail, even keep her from being drug tested, if only she'd drop her pants.

He made her
and others strip, according to court records. He made them touch themselves.
And him. And ... more. Much more.

Baker was
charged in 2005 with two counts of first-degree rape, eight counts of custodial
sexual misconduct, 19 counts of harassment and 13 incidents of indecent
exposure. He pleaded guilty to the two counts of rape, and all other charges
were dropped. He was sentenced to three years on one rape, and five years on
the other. In a court filing, he called the sentence excessive.

His case is
one of the extreme ones. More common are those like that of Greg Leshan
Ray.

Ray was
sexually involved with two women at the Choctaw County Jail, and in 2008 faced
two counts of custodial sexual misconduct. He copped to a harassment charge,
and was given probation. He did no time.

And then there
are women like Clarke County Jail worker LaJoyce
Harmon, who had an inappropriate relationship with an inmate. She saw her sex
crime dismissed as she pleaded guilty to promoting prison contraband. She was
given probation.

Nineteen women have been charged with custodial sexual
misconduct since 2004. Six were convicted on that charge. All but two of the
others pleaded or were found guilty of a lesser charge.

These cases run the gamut. They range from the horrifying,
like Baker's, to the dubious and ostensibly consensual relationships between
inmates and guards, like Harmon's. But they are all troubling.

Because there can be no truly consensual relationship in a
place where guards control everything, from what to eat to when you sleep and
whether you get your toiletries or your medicine.

Prisoners can be easily bribed, as one work release inmate
said this week, with something as simple as a Church's chicken sandwich. With
promises. With coercion. With hope for a life more bearable.

But the truth is guards who become involved with inmates
are nothing more than predators, committing a sort of statutory rape on those
too afraid, too impressionable, or too desperate to resist.

Tutwiler, as the Department of Justice says, is a place where
women "universally fear for their safety." It is offensive to the mind, to the
soul, and to the Constitution of the United States. It must be fixed. Or razed.

But Tutwiler is not the
problem in Alabama. Tutwiler – the sickest
prison in America – is just a symptom of a prison culture gone horribly wrong.

And that's not a Tutwiler problem. That's our problem.

John Archibald is a columnist for Alabama
Media Group. Jarchibald@al.com.

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